While a good deal of the attention has been on the bailouts for the banking and financial sectors and most likely the Detroit automakers and home owners who can’t meet their mortgage payments, there is another group that is counting heavily on the larger Democratic majority in the Congress and an new Democratic president in the White House: Big Labor.
For decades their membership in the private sector has been shrinking from still over 20 percent of the salaried work force 30 years ago to only around 7.5 percent today. (In the government sector, union membership hovers around 40 percent.)
Now the leading labor unions are expecting the new Congress and President to sign what in Orwellian “Newspeak” is called the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it far easier for the labor thugs to force unionization on private business without requiring the workers in those private companies to vote on it through a secret ballot.
Union representatives will just need to publically bully enough workers on the shop or office floor to get a majority of them to sign a card saying they would support unionization.
Since 1990, the labor unions have invested almost $1 billion in campaign contributions (almost all of it on Democratic Party candidates) and in lobbying expenses in Washington, D. C. to make sure the politicians see the world “their way.”
Having failed to voluntarily attract workers to their organizations, Big Labor is determined to save themselves from economic oblivion in the private sector by manipulated and compulsory unionization through legislation and workplace intimidation.
Another stop on the Obama “Journey of Discovery” to look forward to in the New Year!
The facts on the decline in union membership and on the magnitude of Big Labor campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to get this legislation through can be found in a piece I’ve written on “Big Labor Also Expects a Bailout.”
Richard Ebeling
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This legislation is sure to pass now, but it alone will change nothing in Big Labor’s decline, and when this becomes apparent after two to three years, look for the next salvo to force people to join.
For a more insightful view of “labor” than this posting seems to hold, read Kevin Carsons The Ethics of Labor Struggle: A Free Market Perspective.
See Karen de Coster’s recent post on Lew Rockwell.com re the potential appointment of a UAW Auto Czar at http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/024274.html.
Quote from Yancey Ward: “This legislation is sure to pass now, but it alone will change nothing in Big Labor’s decline, and when this becomes apparent after two to three years, look for the next salvo to force people to join.”
I foresee a convergence of special interests: unions and “health care”. Require everybody to join a union as a means for getting health care insurance. The unions, corporations and politicians will all love it. It’s win-win-win (accept for that whole “liberty” thing, but not many people really care about that).
What do the “insights” on labor of the crank/quack Kevin Carson have to do with the point of this post, which deals with steps towads compulsory unionization?
an new Democratic president
ought to be changed to
a new Democratic president
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